One of the cookbooks in my collection that continues to delight me is . Sure, the recipes tend to be kind of labour intensive (do I REALLY need to peel my bell peppers?) but they really work. I really need to invest in Hazan’s classic cookbook, .
As the weather starts to (slowly) warm up and acknowledge that we’ve technically moved on from winter and onto spring, I find myself wanting lighter, brighter foods. What could be lighter and brighter than a risotto featuring asparagus and shrimp?
I made this recipe on a weeknight and because of that I opted out of peeling my asparagus. Yes, Hazan insists on peeling the asparagus but that just felt a wee bit crazy to me. Plus, my asparagus were on the thin side and I just knew that peeling them would be a pain in my butt. Another interesting bit in the recipe is the use of beef bouillon. I’m used to seeing risotto recipes using chicken broth/stock but never a bouillon cube and water. I was skeptical but I did have beef bouillon cubes in the pantry so I decided to give it a shot.
This was definitely one of my favourite risotto recipes. The asparagus make it feel like spring, the shrimp make things lighter but the slight beefiness makes it a tiny bit heavier and more substantial feeling. My only issue is that it’s hard not to overcook the asparagus (and to a degree the shrimp as well) in this dish but the flavours don’t really suffer, it’s more of a texture thing.
For a partial view of the recipe . See for the full recipe.
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I always use beef bouillon cubes: actually that is the standard in Italy if you don’t have homemade broth. I find beef broth gives risotto a depth that chicken broth cannot achieve.
I have an Italian friend that uses bouillon in some of her pasta recipes. She made a pasta tossed with shrimp and added bouillon dissolved in a small amount of water to coat to the pasta and it tasted great.
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